Georgia Geocachers Association
Meeting Minutes
January 8, 2005

The January 2005 meeting was held at the Perimeter store of REI in Atlanta. There were 54 current members and 17 new members present. There was standing room only with this big (and growing) group.

Mtn-man acted as MC for the meeting. He welcomed all members new and old and too a few minutes to explain the sign-in sheets, the “Cash Cache” and the Travel Bug Corral to the new members. He gave a brief of the GGA, the Steering Committee, and the GGA Forums. He also thanked REI for providing the meeting space for the meeting.

Mtn-man also reminded everyone of the upcoming “Introduction to GPS classes being held at two of the REI stores in January and presented by members of the GGA. Everyone was encouraged to help, or just attend.

The agenda for the meeting was to be mainly informal information sharing and “Q & A” since this meeting often has many new members. We all passed questions, answers, advice and kidding around to update everyone on items like the National Forest Service hiatus on caches (which is being worked on by GGA members).

Rebel gave a presentation on how to prepare an ammo can to be a cache. He described how to eliminate the rust, paint and camouflage the cache, and what should go in it. He had samples of cans in each stage of preparation. From there, we went on to answer questions about micro caches, and “dos and don’ts” in cache setup and placement. Of course there was a spate of new war stories on what happens when it is done wrong.

Next came a break. Those who didn’t continue swapping stories went shopping in REI.

After the break, the raffle for door prizes was held. Everyone who wanted something got something, because Trez003 had brought a large quantity of carabineer key rings (compliments of Williams Brothers Lumber Co.).

After the raffle Rebel announced the results of the 2004 Outstanding Georgia Cache voting. The results can be seen HERE. Much cheering and joking ensued. Special thanks to Rebel for his hard work coordinating the nominations, voting and results.

After a few more comments and questions, the meeting was adjourned. Some went shopping, but many went out to take advantage of the last hour or two of daylight to geocache.

The next GGA meeting will be held on February 12, 2005. The location will be posted on the event cache page.